General introductory works

Fernand Baldensperger and Werner P. Friederich, Bibliography of Comparative Literature (1950, reprinted 1960), comprehensive coverage of literatures, classified by author, country, and according to genre, theme, etc.; Antony Brett-James, The Triple Stream: Four Centuries of English, French, and German Literature, 1531–1930 (1953, reprinted 1977), contains useful comparative tables arranged chronologically; John M. Cohen, A History of Western Literature, rev. ed. (1963), a useful factual and critical account; Jean-Albert Bede and William B. Edgerton (gen. eds.), Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, 2nd ed. (1980), contains over 1,800 articles, including surveys, critical essays, and biographies, with bibliographies; William F. Thrall and Addison Hibbard, A Handbook to Literature, 4th ed. by C. Hugh Holman (1980), good coverage of literary terms and movements; Rene Wellek, A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, 4 vol. (1955– ), surveys theory in the major European nations since the Renaissance.

The 18th century

Lilian R. Furst, Romanticism in Perspective, 2nd ed. (1979), on the Romantic movement in France, England, and Germany, and The Contours of European Romanticism (1979); John B. Halsted (ed.), Romanticism (1969), a collection of extracts and key essays by the leading figures of western European Romanticism, with a long introduction and chronological table; Paul Hazard, La Pensée européenne au XVIIIe siècle (1963; Eng. trans., European Thought in the Eighteenth Century, 1963); Daniel Mornet, The Development of Literature and Culture in the XVIIIth Century (1954), an extensive survey; Mario Praz, La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica (1930; 5th ed., 1976; Eng. trans., The Romantic Agony, 2nd ed., 1951; reissued with corrections, 1970), a remarkable work, now a classic in this field; John G. Robertson, Studies in the Genesis of Romantic Theory in the Eighteenth Century (1923, reprinted 1962).

The 20th century

Erich Auerbach, Mimesis (1946; Eng. trans. 1953), traces the development of Realism from ancient to modern times; Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren (eds.), Understanding Poetry, 4th ed. (1976), and Understanding Fiction, 3rd ed. (1979); and Cleanth Brooks and Robert B. Heilman, Understanding Drama, rev. ed. (1948), detailed anthologies, with explications of texts—invaluable introductions, especially to the study of modern writing, though not limited to 20th-century literature; Gyorgy Lukacs, Studies in European Realism (1950, reprinted 1972), an important work by a major Marxist critic; Rene Wellek and Austin Warren, Theory of Literature, 3rd ed. rev. (1970), a general and theoretical work, especially useful as a guide to modern literature; Claude Mauriac, L’Alittérature contemporaine (1958; Eng. trans., The New Literature, 1959); Stephen Spender, The Struggle of the Modern (1963) and The Thirties and After (1978); Edmund Wilson, Axel’s Castle (1931), The Triple Thinkers, rev. ed. (1948, reprinted 1977), and The Twenties: From Notebooks and Diaries of the Period, ed. by Leon Edel (1975).

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